Wednesday, October 7, 2015

D.C. Metro Officials Would Be Wise to Encourage Bikeshare Connections to Their Service

I'm quoted throughout an article published today in The Washingtonian Magazine. It's a good article and highlights how the leaders of D.C.'s Metrorail and Metrobus are struggling to understand how they fit into the fast-changing transportation network of the city. If they think this way about Capital Bikeshare, what must they think about Uber and Lyft?

Metro Can Blame Bikeshare for Lost Passengers, but Bikeshare Is Just Going to Get Bigger

“You’re going to start seeing Bikeshare in places where Bikeshare stations were too far apart,” says Paul Mackie, the spokesman for Mobility Lab, the Arlington-based transportation think tank. “There are going to be stations every three or four blocks.”

That kind of Bikeshare concentration, along with additional bike infrastructure like marked lanes or protected cycle tracks, could actually put a big dent in Metro’s ridership. But instead of pushing back on bikes, Metro should working with Bikeshare to attract people who might actually rely on both modes of transportation for their commutes.

“They have got to allow Bikeshare stations on all their property,” Mackie says. “It would make bike-riding so much better, it would make riding Metro so much better.”

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Deficit or no, though, Bikeshare is not going to back off just because it’ll make things easier for a struggling mass-transit system, and Mackie says Metro discourages Bikeshare membership at its peril.

“For Metro to be discouraging any kinds of trips to its stations is real backward thinking,” he says. “That should be common sense.”